News from Travel Technology Update: After wrangling with the U.S. Department of Transportation, Spirit Airlines last week reinstated a "Passenger Usage Fee" of $4.90 each way. Spirit began charging the fee last summer, along with a $2.50 "natural occurrence interruption fee" and an $8.50 "international service recovery fee." A natural occurrence is more commonly known as "weather." The recovery fee aimed to offset the costs of doing business with international destinations.
Air New Zealand was expected to operate a "tailored arrival" into Los Angeles yesterday as part of a trial to prove the procedure's viability into one of the world's busiest airports. NZ Flight 2, a 777-200ER, was due to complete the tailored arrival at 3 p.m. local time. It is approximately 30 mi. shorter than the conventional arrival and features a customized, efficient descent from cruise to runway, eliminating a stepped approach and saving time and fuel.
Alaska Airlines and the Air Line Pilots Assn. announced an agreement "in concept" on a new four-year labor deal covering 1,500 pilots. Meetings are scheduled this week "to finalize the agreement language," AS said. Negotiations have been ongoing since January 2007.
UFO trade union representing Lufthansa flight attendants authorized open-ended strikes by a 96%-4% voting margin, according to a union statement cited by Reuters. Negotiations between UFO and LH failed late last month ( ATWOnline, Feb. 19).
Delta Air Lines and Midwest Airlines forged an alliance that will include codeshare flights, linked loyalty programs, joint marketing efforts and expanded access to airport lounges across North America. Agreement announced yesterday is an extension of an existing deal between Midwest and DL subsidiary Northwest Airlines. The codeshare arrangement between Midwest and DL takes effect in June, with the loyalty program link to follow.
Gol said yesterday that it will take a "disciplined" approach to capacity in 2009, reducing overall full-year capacity by 1% year-over-year comprising a 25% cut in international ASKs and 5% growth in the domestic market.
Air Canada and Jazz flew a combined 3.41 billion RPMs in February, a 10.5% decrease from the year-ago month. Capacity fell 11% to 4.28 billion ASMs, lifting load factor 0.4 point to 79.6%. EasyJet transported 3 million passengers in February, down 6.8% year-over-year. Load factor rose 2.4 points to 87%. Air Berlin said February unit revenue rose 12% year-over-year to €5.28 cents (6.68 cents). Passenger numbers declined 8.5% to 1.9 million on a 6.3% cut in capacity. Load factor fell 1.7 points to 72.5%.
Air France KLM flew 14.04 billion RPKs in February, down 6% from the year-ago month. Capacity fell 4.5% to 18.92 billion ASKs, lowering load factor 1.2 points to 74.3%. Delta Air Lines flew 7.69 billion RPMs in February, down 9.2% year-over-year. Capacity fell 6.2% to 10.61 billion ASMs and load factor slipped 2.4 points to 72.5%. Northwest Airlines flew 5.14 billion RPMs in February, a 13.6% decline year-over-year, against a 10.2% fall in ASMs to 6.66 billion. Load factor dropped 3 points to 77.2%.
US House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee last week approved a new FAA reauthorization bill that would provide $70 billion in funding for the agency through 2012 and includes a controversial amendment requiring the US Dept. of Transportation to renew airline alliances' antitrust immunity every three years. The bill also calls for ATC to continue to be funded largely by airline ticket taxes rather than user fees that would force business aviation to provide more system funding.
Finnair Technical Services and Iberia Maintenance signed a seven-year component support agreement under which Iberia will provide spares and related repair services for AY A330s and A340s. FTS in turn will perform component repairs on IB A320s and CFM-56B engines. The contract is expected to generate around €30 million ($37.8 million) in turnover. Work will commence in April, when IB is scheduled to send an A320 to FTS for heavy maintenance.
Frontier Airlines Holdings announced a firm commitment for $40 million in post-petition debtor-in-possession financing from Republic Airways Holdings, subject to bankruptcy court approval. The new facility refinances an existing loan scheduled to mature in April and increases available financing, Frontier President and CEO Sean Menke said. Frontier hopes to exit bankruptcy protection this year.
Air Astana carried 2.3 million passengers in 2008, up 8% on the prior year, at a 64% load factor. Capacity rose 16% to 7.5 billion ASKs, the Kazakh flag carrier said. It took delivery of three A320 family aircraft last year, bringing its fleet to 21 planes. It confirmed orders for an additional six A320s and plans to be operating 34 aircraft by 2015. It currently flies two 767s, four 757s, one A319, two A321s, seven A320s and five F50s to 25 domestic and 21 international destinations.
Teledyne Controls said German charter airline Blue Wings selected its Flight Data Interface Management Unit for 20 new A320s. First delivery is expected in August. Technology will perform flight data acquisition, aircraft condition monitoring and data recording. SunGard will provide Etihad Airways with its Kiodex Risk Workbench, a Web-based trading technology to manage the airline's fuel hedging program.
Greek government selected domestic holding company Marfin Investment Group to purchase Olympic Airlines. "The government's legal and financial advisers informed us that the negotiations wth MIG's advisers for the sale of Olympic's flying operations and technical maintenance ended successfully," Development Minister Costis Hatzidakis said. MIG bid €45.7 million ($57.5 million) for OA's flight operations and €16.7 million for its MRO division.
US FAA Acting Administrator Lynne Osmus yesterday formally named Peggy Gilligan associate administrator-aviation safety, replacing the retired Nicholas Sabatini. Gilligan previously served as deputy assistant administrator-aviation safety. John Hickey, director of FAA's Aircraft Certification Service, will replace Gilligan. He in turn will be replaced by Dorenda Baker, formerly deputy director-Aircraft Certification Service.
TUIfly will cut winter 2009-10 capacity by around 100 weekly flights, or approximately 14%. Cuts will comprise both routes and frequencies, it said Wednesday, citing a drop in demand. Reductions in the upcoming summer schedule also are being considered.
AirTran Airways flew 1.23 billion RPMs in February, a 13.6% fall from the year-ago month. Capacity dropped 9.1% to 1.66 billion ASMs, lowering load factor 3.9 points to 74.2%. WestJet said it is expecting first-quarter RASM to drop 10%-12% year-over-year, although that decline will be offset partially by falling fuel costs. The LCC flew 1.12 billion RPMs in February, up 5.5% year-over-year, against a 5.7% rise in ASMs to 1.35 billion. Load factor slipped 0.2 point to 82.6%.
EasyJet broke ranks with its European legacy counterparts and strongly condemned the move toward a temporary suspension of the EU's so-called "use it or lose it" slot rule, which dictates that carriers must use their slots at an 80% rate or return them to the pool.
Esterline CMC Electronics reached an agreement with Boeing for its PilotView Class 2 Electronic Flight Bag hardware to be made available for select aircraft types, starting with 737NGs.
The Chinese airline industry showed some signs of recovery in January as domestic carriers posted a collective net profit of CNY40 million ($5.8 million), according to CAAC. The airlines reported a CNY7.07 billion net loss through the first 11 months of 2008. The regulator credited "favorable policies" implemented in December for the January result, including its decision to withhold approval for new entrants until 2010 and its call for carriers to cancel or delay aircraft orders. Fee reductions and infrastructure improvements also played a role, CAAC said.
US Air Transport Assn. wrote a letter to Senate Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.), who recently introduced legislation targeting antitrust immunity among airline alliances ( ATWOnline, Feb. 6), saying that "the traveling and shipping public will suffer from a withdrawal of the immunity, which fosters the development of seamless networks of service so beneficial to airline customers." Oberstar's bill would require immunity to be renewed every three years.
TAAG Angola Airlines is targeting June for a resumption of services to the EU, from which it was blacklisted two years ago, an executive told state radio in comments cited by Reuters. "There will be a new EU inspection in May. . .and our goal is for TAAG to resume flights to the EU in June," Rui Carreira said ( ATWOnline, Nov. 17, 2008). TAAG reportedly lost $70 million last year.
